A Fork in the Road
I’m not sure if this is relevant anymore … or perhaps I don’t believe it:
” From atop my Promontory, I can see the receding flood waters leaving a trail of broken homes, failed lives and lost souls. I escaped the most cruel of the ravaging tide’s effects but I do show my share of scars and fresh lacerations.
After taking a step back to asses the aftermath I realized that I survived another devastation and came out ahead of where I was when the storm clouds first rolled in casting dark, evil and greasy shadows that stained the ground with filth and rotting debris.
All is well here and things are moving forward as planned.
Fuck you to everyone who got in my way and who tried to rip the skin from my back and face to cover their own excess largess and who purged the honor from my Name for their own gain. Fuck you all.
I will prevail. Madness, starvation, sickness – nothing will stop me.
And from atop my Promontory I will watch the savage sea wash the ground clean from your filth and degenerate treachery. I will watch foul and unwashed beasts more cruel than the darkest imagination of a revenge-crazed slave devour your unworthy human flesh as you writhe and scream in blinding, agonizing despair. They will plunder your Houses and humiliate your peers.
From atop my Promontory, I will prevail.”
I wrote that in September 2004 with a heart full of ire and thorns. It seemed True and Right at the time but now, just about a year later, I have serious doubts.
I think I’ve done all I can here and I wonder where I’m supposed to be and what’s supposed to happen. I’m repeating the same cycles over and over. I can see it with a small delay from a hazy and out of the way vantage point.
I managed to live 31 years and have nothing to show for it, personally, financially, professionally …
Here, the Road forks. And here, at this time, in this place, I need to make a decision – not only which direction to go but if I should go at all.
Vigil for Cindy Sheehan in Westport, CT
Tonight in Westport, as well as many other places across the country, supporters of Cidy Sheehan gathered in a quiet candle light vigil in a show of support for her cause.
A little over 300 people stood on the north and south sidewalks of the Ruth Steinkraus-Cohen Memorial Bridge – it spans the Saugatuck River in Westport, carrying the Post Road – holding small signs illuminated by the warm glow of candles.
The signs expressed the holders’ support for Cindy Sheehan in her efforts to get another meeting face-to-face with Dubya. Also expressed through simple text on the paper signs were concerns over the War, and soldiers dying.
At some point, a stereo-typical white trash kid drove through running red lights and hanging out of his huge, red SUV shouting some sort of unpatriotic jibberish about killing and war being good (why wasn’t he in Iraq?) and then added something like ” … And I’m gonna run every fucking red light in this town!”.
I’m sure his point was clearly understood by all in attendance. His banter went several steps further than pontification. it almost made me want to get some guns, beer and a bible and vote Republican.
Well, maybe not.
In another red car, a fat girl with a cigarette shouted something like “war is good! Why don’t you support the War!?” as her tired car creaked past.
Click on the photo to see more pictures.
Other drivers-by simply inquired about the gathering. One guy in a grey, convertible Audi asked me who Cindy was. After I told him he almost seemed concerned. He drove off before I could hear the rest of what he said.
Still others showed support by beeping car horns and shouting as they drove by.
Go, Cindy, Go!
Click on the photo to see more pictures.
I’ll add more phots on Satruday but there are a few there now as a teaser.
Misspellings and a craving for double gloucester
I have a couple of errors on my Website. One was pointed out to me and the other I saw on my own.
Damnit.
No worries.
This weekend I should be able to produce some more work and do another update. I’ll fix the errors then.
I was thinking of adding another section to take the place of the section I deleted: Agriculture.
Maybe something with movement or dogs, horses, chickens and a camel.
No word back from the Hour about the photo work. I’ll send a follow up email either later tonight or tomorrow.
I need to get out of my present work but I need income – plus, I very much miss the newspaper work.
If I can find funding, I’d love to go to Iraq or Afghanistan as an independent journalist …
Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, CT
Brian McGloin
I stopped by Lyman Orchards on my way home yesterday.
The Orchards and the surrounding hills are quite beautiful and very non-Connecticut in their landscape.
I need to stop back in September when it’s still green but there isn’t haze in the air.
Lyman Orchard Photos
Even the Pope needs clean skivvies
Tonight was laundry night.
Computer problems prevented any work today. No, not the trusty Macs, nope. The typically useless Dell I use for my current (but temporary!) job.
In theory, tomorrow morning a shiny new/refurb Dell will be waiting at FedEx. My employer sent out the computer at 4 this afternoon instead of 8:30 when they knew about the problem. I know it takes a little while to gather the software and attend to any liscensing issues.
But 4?
Oh well.
They’re paying me to wait.
SoNo Arts Thing
Today we ventured to South Norwalk for the annual SoNo Arts Festival.
I shot a bunch of photos with both my Nikon F4 and with a new Sony DSC-S40 digi camera.
For a cheap camera, the image quality and responsiveness are astounding. Look at the photos in the link above – you should be able to download a full-size image.
My only problem with the camera is it has no manual settings. However, the auto settings can be played with a bit.
Here is how I had the camera set:
Exposure compensation set to -1/3
Saturation=minus
sharpness=minus
contrast=minus
flash=off
ASA = 400
colorbalance=daylight/sun
and the LCD=OFF! I like the optical viewfinder better.
I was issued a Nikon D1h a little while back while at the Litchfield County Times/Housatonic Publications. I had to set the camera in a similar manner to get semi-decent image quality:
ev -1/3 or more, Adobe RGB colorspace, sharpening OFF and colorbalance set to daylight (or Flourescent or incandescent if needed).
The camera was durable but had a lot of design flaws. Some of them were fixed with custom settings, others just had to be dealt with.
This Sony camera has twice the file size and much better image quality. The batteries last much longer and I can fit it in my pocket easily. I just with the lens was wider.
While at the Festival, we walked around to various booths. As expected the white tents offered a variety of stuff from “fun art” to some very fantastic work.
One of the more fantastic offerings was from Zim Photography . I never got the woman’s first name (I stupidly assumed it was on her card). Her photos were fantastic – and I never like anything I see. Even more strange, she actually spoke and had a great personality! We actually had a conversation. Her work shows that she has a sharp eye focused on the world around her. She utilizes a vast subject matter and presents it in a wonderfully simple and elegant style that is absolutely capivating. One can clearly see that she enjoys photogrpahy and also the world around her. Superlative work.
Another good showing was from Greg Stones Minature Watercolors. He does fantastic and quirky watercolors on a smaller scale. From what I remember, his paintings involve penguins and zombies and the occasional blue, naked girl. He has a fantastic eye for composition and illustration. Like some of the other artists at SoNo, we saw him in Westport at an arts festival a few weeks earlier. He does work that is different and fun without being kitsch (well, I mean bad-kitsch … ) and it seems like he doesn’t take the artwork very seriously. One has to be very confident and very skilled to be able to work like that. I don’t mean sloppy and careless.
It’s awesome work that puts just about all of the “serious” artists to shame – they need to learn from him.
The handcrafted Japanese lams from Lamps by Raul caught my eye. They’re made from different papers and woods. In true Japanese fashion, they have an elegant beauty and a subtle but powerful design. The lamp we asked about was made with rice paper from Chinatown and oil-finished mahogany. The paper was red. Very red. Although the lamps looked similar, each was different and great in it’s own way. I was impressed with the induviduality of each lamp and the craftsmanship. Added to the design and aesthetic qualities was an equally elegant price tag.
Tucked into a corner was Zuogeng Lu Watercolor. His work had a vibrant energy that seemed to move the paper to some hidden music only audible to the pigment soaked into the paper. The work had life and energy and weight. It was in the same family as the Weyeths and David Levine.
I neglected to write names down or take any notes – very out of character of me. At this point, I’ll get the few names I remember wrong and I’m sure I’ll leave a lot out.
The “artists” tend to hide behind their tents or be completely absent and I find that to be in bad taste. I don’t know, maybe they think they’re so good at it that people will just flock to them. I didn’t see many people buying much art – not from the absentee artists anyway. Ms Zim was smart in her friendliness and so was Raul.
It was a good time with good music, interesting people and maybe next year, I’ll have a booth.
Abandoned Factory in Norwich
On East Main Street in Norwich there is an enormous factory that used to house the mighty Atlantic Packaging Company. It’s still partially in use but mostly not. It sits there empty, rotting and forgotten.
I took a stroll through part of it – the part accessible off of 8th Street in Norwich – and of course shot some photos.
Norwhich Factory Photos!
Click on the link and it should go to the Flickr photo thing where the pictuires are stored. Also, take a look at the Exide Factory and Pleasure Beach photos.
These are just quick recon sort of pictures. I need to go back when I have more than a few minutes.
The factory is just over 1/4 mile long and rather wide. The parts in use are guarded but not ver well. It’s sparsely employed these days.
The factory is a packaging manufacterer – the name escapes me at the moment – that used to employ 100′s of people. Now a few machines do the same work of folding and cutting cardboard.
Anyone into architecture and/or history needs to visit Norwich, CT.
Let me know, I’ll show you some good places.
Battle of the Convience Stores
I saw these three nearly identical convience store/gas station/mini marts all next to each other in Norwich, CT.
I thought it would be funny if the employees from all three stores (one has a Dunkin Donuts in it and those employees are seperate from the other half of the building) suddenly burst into the street like somethign out of “West Side Story”. Only instead of the Broadway-esque dancing, they were break dancing and doing Kung Fu and John Woo-influenced gun battles.
They would have to battle for superiority and the rights to the turf.
